


Across the Sea

by Ladycat



Series: Married [4]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: F/M, Facial Shaving, Honeymoon, Schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-13
Updated: 2014-02-13
Packaged: 2018-01-12 06:20:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1182899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladycat/pseuds/Ladycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He doesn't look up from his magazine.  "If you want a dog, dear, we'll talk later."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Across the Sea

John's military. Mer knows this, of course, but she forgets sometimes just what that _entails_.

So when their vacation stretches into week two and the razor has yet to make an appearance, she decides to explore.

"John! On the bed, please."

He doesn't look up from his magazine. "If you want a dog, dear, we'll talk later."

"Yes, because I'm known for wanting large, smelly, hairy things. Oh _wait_ \-- that's why I called you over!"

"I'm not a hairy thing." He's got a touch of defensiveness -- and a pout -- there, which Mer finds unwillingly adorably endearing. Ruffling his hair doesn't do a lot to dispel the notion of 'hairy', but anyway, that's not what this is about.

 _"Finally,"_ she mutters when he joins her on the bed. Straddling his lap makes them both shiver and John's eyebrows perk up in a classic question. "No, not sex now. Shut up. I -- shut up."

She doesn't know what she sounds like, despite the quaver she can recognize. Whatever it is, John goes still and pliant beneath her, hands fisted on the bed so he can look up at her, passive and perfect and utterly accepting.

It's... humbling.

She starts with his arms. The muscles are tense, long cords of them creating valleys in his skin. That she's familiar with, but this time she concentrates on the shadow the hair forms, how it's coarse but not rough, a corrugated glide against her fingers as she dances them up and down, circling his elbows before sliding back to trace the thin skin of his surprisingly skinny wrists, his heartbeat pounding blue against her nails.

His shirt falls away easily, by now. She's practiced with all the buttons and is privately -- very privately -- grateful that he does wear button-downs. She likes the way it skims over his shoulders, no need to shift position to lift and muss, maybe breaking the mood. Just wrapping ripped open to expose the prize within. He's skinny, of course, far skinnier than the bulk of his uniform admits. She cups over his shoulders, feeling warm skin and protruding bone against her palm, before testing the biceps she pretends she doesn't love around her, the ones that hold her up when she stumbles and rocks her to sleep when the nightmares come.

She ignores his chest not because she dislikes it, but because this is not new territory.

John swallows when she touches his neck, her fingers white against the tan he's building. The sun is hot, here, streaming golden and glowing even with the window shades drawn and he soaks it up without a single red blotch. Pressing against the lower grains reveals paler skin and she can't help but lean down, to taste the difference with her tongue.

His beard is rough against her lips, but she doesn't mind. Not this time.

"Mer, what are you doing?" His voice travels up through her skin more than it does her ears. "Mer?"

"Shh." She kisses his Adam's apple, not so protruding, but it bobs enticingly under her lips. It, too, is cover with stiff, bristling hair but it doesn't hurt. It feels good, like when she says, _Scratch, right there, please please please, harder, there_ , shamelessly wiggling until he gets under her shoulder blades where the bra sometimes cuts in, driving her mad with the need to scratch. When she comes away, she knows her cheek and chin will be red, the way her thighs were this morning, and perversely, she hopes someone will see. She wants them to look at this man, skinny and hairy, bristling with beard that he usually shaves multiple times, and know that he's hers.

This beautiful man is hers.

By the time she reaches his mouth, after traveling high up on his cheeks, and then further over to where the hair grows slicker, falling into her eyes, the softness of his lips is a shock. His beard burns against the outside of her lips, creasing the delicate skin, but she doesn't mind.

Kissing John is easy as breathing. Easier, really, since sometimes the air seems to fight her, toxic to her straining lungs.

John never fights her.

Cupping her hands over his cheeks, Meredith rubs her fingers back and forth. "Does this bother you?" she asks. She's going against the grain, enjoing the way it ruffles into ungainly tufts, and she knows from experience that however fascinating is her leg hair, she hates when he plays with it.

"No." His voice is high and a little breathy. He keeps forgetting it's okay to close his eyes and forces them back open, staring at her with green that bleeds in huge swaths through the brown, the oddly shaped pupil within blown wide and dark. "No, not at all."

She kisses him again. "Good. Was." Oh, god, she shouldn't. But. "Was your other honeymoon like this?"

That gets his attention, hands suddenly tight in her hair, nails on her neck while his mouth gets hot, _fierce_ as he crushes any other questions out of her. "We didn't have one," he says, eventually. She's panting; he's not. "I had an assignment and she didn't want to take off work."

"I didn't want to take off work, either."

John smiles, all the way up to his eyes where lines crinkle and grow white along the edges, teeth a shock of bright in all that whorling dark. "That's different, Mer." His hands gentle the places he pulled before, and she doesn't tell him that she liked the pulling, a lot. "Come to bed."

"We're in bed."

"Not yet, we're not."

She keeps petting his cheeks as he takes off her clothes and it's awkward, but neither of them care. The Caribbean sun is hot and lazy as they tangle together, and she still wishes they'd gone to Hawaii, maybe, or Alaska the way she first wanted to. But he slides inside her while she gasps and rocks, arms close and mouth closer, and she remembers it doesn't matter where they are. They're here. Both of them. That's what matters.

And later, her thighs get scratched red again.


End file.
